Originally posted by smittims
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What opera are you listening to?
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Originally posted by Pulcinella View PostI'm being lazy, as I'm sure that I could easily find out myself.
Is there any MUSICAL difference between the Britten 2-act version and the Nagano 4-act version, which are the two recordings I have?
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Originally posted by smittims View PostAll,I know is the four act version included a scene at the end of the old act one known as the Captain's Muster. Peter Pears was said to be relieved when it was cut.
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Originally posted by smittims View PostAll,I know is the four act version included a scene at the end of the old act one known as the Captain's Muster. Peter Pears was said to be relieved when it was cut.
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Yesterday was the Jenufa Matinee at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. I really enjoyed it. It gave me a new window of appreciation into Janacek as a composer (I believe he wrote the libretto?). The way the music supported and amplified the action was thrilling. The religiosity on display normally would have been off putting for me (it’s hard to contemplate forgiveness that extends to marrying someone who intentionally disfigured you, and quickly forgiving someone who willfully drowns your baby) but perhaps it was the only means of accommodating the mores of the time. At any rate, I would love to sample Janacek’s other operas
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Originally posted by richardfinegold View PostYesterday was the Jenufa Matinee at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. I really enjoyed it. It gave me a new window of appreciation into Janacek as a composer (I believe he wrote the libretto?). The way the music supported and amplified the action was thrilling. The religiosity on display normally would have been off putting for me (it’s hard to contemplate forgiveness that extends to marrying someone who intentionally disfigured you, and quickly forgiving someone who willfully drowns your baby) but perhaps it was the only means of accommodating the mores of the time. At any rate, I would love to sample Janacek’s other operas
If we're in tune with Jenufa - as Janacek makes sure we are - we can feel how she can forgive these terrible things. That is what makes the opera moving and beautiful, especially in our soulless era of "blame culture" (a contradiction in terms, if ever I heard one). It's not faded at all, and seems just as much about the mores of our time as the composer's own.
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Originally posted by kernelbogey View PostListening to the live relay from the Met on R3 of La Boheme - Stephen Costello a very fine Rodolfo: I'm wondering if he's the best I've heard. Too soon to decide how fine a Mimi Elena Stikhina is.
Yes Stephen is very secure and has a beautiful voice.
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Originally posted by Master Jacques View PostSo does Marcello!
Actually she’s better in Act IV - not forcing the voice .For a debutante in the role her voice sounds older and darker - might make a good Lady Macbeth though.
Mimi in contrast is terrific as is Rodolfo…
and the Met audience have as usual clapped over the last bars of every act . Why did Puccini bother ?
A propos of nothing in particular the forthcoming Boheme at ROH doesn’t seem to be selling.
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Purely by coincidence, given its recent discussion, I listened this morning to the Solti Salome. It was the first performance of the opera I heard, in 1971, and I was thrilled by the music, the performance and the recording,though the following year I preferred the Leinsdorf recording with Monserrat Caballe, and a splendid Richard Lewis as Herod.
There's no doubt Solti and Culshaw went all out for thrills in their recording, for all that it was ostensibly a stereo re-make of the previous Decca outing with the same orchestra. At the time it seemed part of a projected series of all the Strauss operas, following Arabella, and they went on to make a celebrated Elektra and Rosenkavalier, but never completed the while series, if indeed they had intended to do so. Maybe the financial decline of Decca was to blame.
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Originally posted by smittims View PostPurely by coincidence, given its recent discussion, I listened this morning to the Solti Salome. It was the first performance of the opera I heard, in 1971, and I was thrilled by the music, the performance and the recording,though the following year I preferred the Leinsdorf recording with Monserrat Caballe, and a splendid Richard Lewis as Herod.
There's no doubt Solti and Culshaw went all out for thrills in their recording, for all that it was ostensibly a stereo re-make of the previous Decca outing with the same orchestra. At the time it seemed part of a projected series of all the Strauss operas, following Arabella, and they went on to make a celebrated Elektra and Rosenkavalier, but never completed the while series, if indeed they had intended to do so. Maybe the financial decline of Decca was to blame.
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That, of course , had been John Culshaw's aim, though he left Decca in 1968 while still at the height of his powers as a record producer. I don't think hehad the same success in his next job at the bBc, though it brought us the films of 'Owen Wingrave and 'Peter Grimes' among other thngs.
I like the Keilberth 'Frau' (DG) though I grew up on the old Bohm in its stereo release. It must have been one of the first operas recorded in stereo, quite an achievement considering the scoring . I can still hear Emanuel Brabec in the big cello solo in my mind. An underrated opera, certainly.
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